Time Surfing: Experience History.
An experiment: travel back in time and position a drone over a spot on the Earth… and then watch the area evolve. Imperfect, to be sure, but a work in progress. Comments welcome!
Rome began as a cluster of hut villages on hills above a swampy valley along the Tiber River. That valley — drained by one of the world’s first great sewers — became the Roman Forum, the beating heart of a republic and then an empire that ruled 60 million people. After Rome’s fall, the Forum was slowly buried under silt and rubble until it became a cow pasture called the Campo Vaccino. Archaeologists dug it back out in the 1800s, dictators paraded past it in the 1900s, and today millions of tourists walk its ancient stones. Our “time-travel drone” hovers at exactly 120 meters above the northwest edge of the Forum valley, facing southeast, and never moves — watching the same square kilometer of Earth transform across twenty-eight centuries.
September, 753 BC, late afternoon — Forum valley, future site of Rome, Latium, Italy
A marshy valley lies between wooded hills. Clusters of round thatched huts dot the Palatine Hill. Shepherds drive sheep along muddy paths. The area that will become the Roman Forum is a wetland used as a burial ground. Rome, according to legend, is founded this year.
September, 500 BC, late afternoon — Roman Forum, Rome, Roman Republic
The swamp is gone, drained by the Cloaca Maxima sewer. A gravel public square now fills the valley. Early temples with painted terracotta roofs stand at its edges. Rome has just expelled its kings and become a republic. Citizens in wool togas gather to trade and argue politics.
September, 44 BC, late afternoon — Roman Forum, Rome, Roman Republic
Six months after Julius Caesar’s assassination, the Forum is crowded with marble temples, basilicas, and political tension. Construction cranes work on Caesar’s unfinished projects. The republic is dying; civil war is coming.
September, 80 AD, late afternoon — Roman Forum and Flavian Amphitheatre, Rome, Roman Empire
The Colosseum has just opened with 100 days of games. Fifty thousand spectators stream toward the gleaming new amphitheater. The Forum below is fully rebuilt in marble after the Great Fire. Rome is the capital of the known world.
September, 315 AD, late afternoon — Roman Forum, Rome, Roman Empire
Emperor Constantine’s new triumphal arch has just been dedicated beside the Colosseum. The Forum is at maximum architectural density, but the empire’s center of gravity is shifting east. This is imperial Rome’s last great monumental moment.
September, 410 AD, late afternoon — Roman Forum, Rome, three weeks after the Visigothic sack
Alaric’s Visigoths have sacked Rome — the first time in 800 years the city has fallen to an enemy. Smoke stains mark burned basilicas. Bronze statues have been torn down for loot. Survivors pick through debris in the half-empty Forum.
September, 800 AD, late afternoon — Forum ruins, Rome, Papal States
Charlemagne is in Rome this year to be crowned emperor by the pope. The Forum is a half-buried ruin field. Temples have become churches. Rome’s population has collapsed from a million to perhaps 25,000, clustered near the river.
September, 1350 AD, late afternoon — Campo Vaccino (former Forum), Rome, Papal States
The Forum is now the “Campo Vaccino” — the cow field. Fortified towers built by feuding noble families rise from ancient ruins. Rome, abandoned by the popes for Avignon and ravaged by the Black Death two years earlier, holds barely 20,000 people. Jubilee pilgrims still come.
April-style early autumn light, September, 1536 AD, late afternoon — Campo Vaccino, Rome, Papal States
Pope Paul III has cleared a triumphal route through the ruins for Emperor Charles V’s grand entry into Rome. Medieval buildings have been demolished to expose ancient monuments. The Renaissance has rediscovered the classical past — and is remodeling it.
September, 1817 AD, late afternoon — Campo Vaccino, Rome, Papal States
The Grand Tour era. English and German artists sketch the picturesque half-buried ruins. The first systematic excavations have begun — pits around the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Column of Phocas reveal the true ancient ground level, meters below the cow pasture.
September, 1899 AD, late afternoon — Roman Forum excavations, Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Rome is capital of a unified Italy. Archaeologist Giacomo Boni’s great excavation is stripping away centuries of soil. Rail carts haul dirt from trenches. The elms of the Campo Vaccino are gone; the ancient Forum is emerging into daylight for the first time in a thousand years.
September, 1938 AD, late afternoon — Roman Forum and Via dell’Impero, Rome, Kingdom of Italy (Fascist era)
Mussolini has carved the broad Via dell’Impero past the Forum, demolishing a medieval neighborhood to link the Colosseum with his balcony. Fascist banners hang for a state occasion. Ancient Rome has become a propaganda stage.
September 15, 2026 AD, 5:40 PM — Roman Forum Archaeological Park, Rome, Italy
The Forum is now one of the most visited archaeological sites on Earth. Tourists from every continent walk the Sacra Via at golden hour. Conservation scaffolding, metro construction, and 2,800 years of history share a single frame.
Historical Narrative
Seen from one unmoving point in the sky (Editor: not quite, still working on the drone technology), Rome’s story becomes almost geological. A swamp becomes a marketplace; a marketplace becomes the command center of an empire; the empire’s marble is burned into lime and its forum buried under thirty feet of dirt where cattle graze for a thousand years. Then the process reverses: diggers peel back the centuries, dictators dress the ruins as propaganda, and finally millions of ordinary people arrive just to stand where it all happened. The same hills, the same valley, the same low golden light — but everything human in the frame is built, destroyed, buried, and unearthed again. That is the lesson of Time Surfing over Rome: cities are not permanent things but slow-motion events, and even the “Eternal City” earned its name not by never changing, but by surviving every change imaginable.
Editor’s note: I could not get any image model to illustrate the Colosseum correctly in certain of its early years. Apologies for the inaccuracy. Comments are open for suggestions!
Subscribe now for free updates! A Paid sub unlocks all of the “You are there…” Graphic Histories that are kinda like time travel; the true story of Spygate - the Graphic Novel; The Laptop From Hell and much more!
Share to earn Rewards! See the Leaderboard for details.
Time Surfing: Graphic Histories.
The true story of Trump and Russian Collusion. Free to paid subscribers - also available on Kindle and in paperback!
The Illustrated Spygate Scandal
A dramatization of real events. This is Part I. The entire book is online - and available on Kindle and in paperback!
The true story of Hunter Biden’s laptop - and the Ukraine Impeachment scandal.
Thank you for these "Time Travels". Each one gets better and better. I love to read about history; your series just make everything so vivid and memorable! How I wish we had these when I was in school!
I can't wait to see the next one!
Thank you. I love this series. May I suggest London, Tokyo and maybe a real challenge, Jerusalem?